


Through Myself and Back Again

by Green



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Empathy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Psychic Bond, Soul Bond, Telepathy, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 00:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4685123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green/pseuds/Green
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Stiles knows he needs a ground ('an anchor', he hears an old memory whisper), help to pull the <em>thing</em> back so he doesn't destroy… well, everything.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>If Derek hadn't reached out, Stiles probably would have burned and burned until nothing was left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Myself and Back Again

**Author's Note:**

> Found this in my docs. I haven't touched it in forever. I always meant to go back and add to it, because this was supposed to be the beginning of a much longer story, but that never happened.
> 
> The backstory: Claudia ran from her family once, twenty years ago. She ran to Beacon Hills, fell in love, was married, became pregnant. But her family found her and took her back before she had her son. She and Stiles have been prisoners of their family ever since. They used Stiles as collateral against her, and he wouldn't leave her behind even if he'd been able. She couldn't keep her family from teaching her son black magic, but she always told him it would be his choice. He didn't have to be wholly dark, and one day they would escape and be able to make their own choices again. She got sick before she could put her plans into action, but she made him memorize the contact information for the Hale pack back in Beacon Hills. He had one chance to get free of them - when she died, he'd inherit her powers and he could use them to get away, call for backup, and hide until help arrived.
> 
> Stiles watched his mother deteriorate for years, until she finally slipped away and he was suddenly very, very strong. Strong enough to hurt anyone who tried to stop him from running.
> 
> He got free and contacted the Hale Alpha to send help, but he didn't count on the magic being so overwhelming.
> 
> (title from "Round Here" by Counting Crows because I am stuck in the 90s forever)

Stiles isn't even sure he's truly awake. He doesn't feel awake. He doesn't feel like himself. He has no memory of how he got where he is, or who the people with him are. When he tries to think, he finds that his mind isn't going to let him. 

He tries to say something. Maybe he asks what's going on, or where he is. His voice sounds far away, like an echo coming back to him.

There are two people with him. A man and a woman. He doesn't know them. That scares him and without bidding, something starts building inside him.

The woman's eyes widen and glow gold. He can tell she's scared but trying to hide it. She says something, harsh and strangled, but the words make no sense. The inhuman glow of her eyes is making him panic even more, and the _something_ building inside him lashes out at her, and then he doesn't see her anymore. He hears a yelp and a snarl, though, and he knows he needs a ground ('an anchor', he hears an old memory whisper), help to pull the _thing_ back so he doesn't destroy… well, everything.

He needs his _mom_.

He shuts his eyes as tight as he can and calls out for her desperately, over and over again, but there's no answer and he feels so empty inside, despite the ever-expanding _thing_.

"Shh, shh," he hears the man say soothingly, and then a low rumble — not human at all, but something that vibrates through the air and touches him. It's a sound and a sensation both, and when he reaches out blindly — for something, he's not sure what — his hand encounters skin, connection. His fingers press down and search mindlessly. The rumble continues and his fingertips encounter a strong pulse in the wrist his hand is wrapped around. It's so hard to focus, and he knows that's a problem he has even on a good day, but today seems especially bad for a reason he can't remember.

He opens his eyes and all he can see is green. Or blue. Or brown. 

_Hazel_. Worried hazel eyes locked with his own, filling his vision, and all he can feel is the pulse and all he can hear is the rumble and then the scent hits him, like forests and wild things. But something is missing, something he needs, and it's not until he's pulled the man closer by the wrist and opens his mouth to skin that he knows. He tastes the tang of salt and a slight zing of power he wouldn't recognize any other day. But now, with the _thing_ filling him — magic, it's magic and it's in every cell of his body right now — he has an instinctual knowledge, and the man in front of him filling every one of his senses is full of a different kind of magic. 

The man makes a soft, choked sound when Stiles laves over the skin again, his magically sensitized tongue tracing the whorls of a thumbprint. The more Stiles focuses his senses, the calmer he becomes, and the more control he has. He gives the man his full attention and it grounds him.

Time passes, but slowly his brain comes back online. The first words he hears and actually understands are, "Derek, what the hell?" from the woman. Stiles somehow doubts it's the first time she's said it.

"Shut up, Laura," the man — Derek — says. He's annoyed and fascinated and embarrassed all at once, but his voice is mostly just soft and even, so Stiles doesn't know how he's figured out the emotions. He'd like to figure it out, but he-

He's got a stranger's thumb in his mouth, and he possibly just threw the woman away from him with just the power of his mind or whatever, and he really can't think about anything else at the moment because there's enough weirdness going on as it is, okay?

Okay. Yes. He can think. He gives the pad of Derek's thumb a playful nip — where the hell did that come from? — and then lets it go. Regretfully. He doesn't really need the taste sense now. He keeps his eyes on Derek's, keeps his hand wrapped around the man's wrist, keeps breathing in his scent. Focuses his hearing on Derek's breaths now that the rumble has stopped.

"Back with us?" Derek asks.

Stiles opens his mouth to say yes, but his throat is raw, like- Well, he's probably been screaming, so it's no wonder his throat hurts. He winces when his answer is just a garbled squeak of pain, and nods his head. He looks away from Derek's eyes for just a moment, to prove to himself he can. He doesn't let go of him, keeps his fingertips pressed against the man's pulse. 

He looks over Derek's shoulder to Laura, to see if she's hurt. He's pretty sure he didn't imagine her flying through the air. She's a little dirty, but there's no blood and she's standing comfortable, uninjured. He makes a face at her, trying to tell her he's sorry with just his eyes since his voice is not up to the task at the moment.

"It's okay," Derek says to him, and Stiles focuses on meeting his eyes again. "She's not hurt."

Stiles bites his lip and frowns. How did Derek know that's what he was thinking?

Derek just looks at him, his face impassive but Stiles can feel-

Shit. He can _feel_ what Derek is thinking. Or feeling, whatever. (More fascination, wonder, concern.) What's this, sudden onset empathy? Magic is so freaky.

Stiles sucks in a breath at that thought, because he suddenly remembers how and why he has magic in the first place. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. It hurts, it hurts so fucking bad, and it's like all the air has been taken out of him and his magic is rising up again, eager to take out whatever it was that hurt him like this.

 _Mom_ , he thinks, and a choked sound of agony escapes, and for just a moment he thinks maybe he should let the magic go, destroy everything he can, burn himself out, maybe die in the process because surely feeling nothing at all would be preferable to this anguish. 

But Derek is there, pulling him in close against his body, heedless of any danger to himself. He presses Stiles's face against his neck and his arms are wrapped around him. That inhuman rumble is back and now Stiles recognizes it as a kind of growl, but it doesn't scare him because now he understands the meaning behind it. It's comfort and care and protection, and with that knowledge Stiles gives himself permission to let go because now his magic knows not to hurt Derek, to never hurt Derek, and if he were more mindful of what the hell was going on, Stiles would be seriously worried about the way his magic and psyche has latched on to a man he's never met before.

It's okay, though. Or rather, as okay as it can get without his mom. He's crying, sobbing, his hands twisted into Derek's shirt, pressing _under_ his shirt because the whole 'personal boundaries' part of his brain is shut down entirely. There is smooth, hot skin and there, under his palm is what he needs: a steady heartbeat to guide him through this. 

With his face pressed into Derek's neck, he can smell him so much more clearly than before. The forest scent unfolds into 'sunlight on pine, damp leaves, florals on a fresh breeze' and the wildness is something electric and animal, a predator, but one who does not see Stiles as prey. There's the scent of leather, too, but Derek isn't wearing any at the moment. All of these things tangle together, layered over something even more basic, something Stiles has to get to with his mouth. 

The taste of skin, salty-sweet, tang and musk, explodes on Stiles's tongue just as Derek jolts and gasps at the sensation. Derek is about to push him away, Stiles can feel him debating how to do it without upsetting Stiles and sending him into another tailspin of panic-pain-lashing out. So Stiles pulls back first, ducking his head, embarrassed and miserable and confused and rejected, but still anchored by the strong thudding of Derek's heart beneath his hand.

"Holy shit, Der," Laura says, and when Stiles glances at her, he sees her expression caught between sympathy and amusement.

Derek spares her a glance and curls his lip. Fuck, was that a fang? Wait. They must be here because of the Alpha Stiles vaguely remembers contacting when he first ran, after…

After everything happened.

So Derek and Laura are from the Hale pack in California. Werewolves. Stiles has never met werewolves before, but his mom always said they were just like humans, with good ones and bad ones, and that it is always a choice whether to be good or bad. That he could choose to be Light or Dark or even Grey, and that his heritage shouldn't come into the equation when he chose, and that it's the same with all sentient species, human and were-creature and all the others she'd taught him about.

"We have to get out of here," Derek says, breaking him out of his musings. "We're taking you back to Beacon Hills with us."

Stiles's magic leaps up, out of his skin, because he has a sudden moment of panic at the thought of being enclosed in a car with nowhere to run if his magic goes haywire. Derek obviously feels the energy on his skin, but since Stiles's magic _likes_ Derek, it doesn't hurt him.

Derek looks down at where Stiles is touching him still, his thick eyebrows raised in surprise. Stiles wants to ask what it feels like, but his throat is still wrecked.

"Get Stiles some cool water," Derek says, and Laura snorts but goes to do as he says. When she's gone, Derek whispers, "Warm. It tingles, but it's nice. It doesn't hurt."

He's talking about Stiles's magic and what it feels like to him. He's answering a question Stiles wasn't able to ask, and it should freak them both out more than it seems to be doing.

"Yeah," Derek says. "It's weird. We'll figure it out." He shrugs, like that's all there is to it. Except Stiles knows there's more to it, that Derek likes it, likes…

And then there's a complicated tangle of thought and emotion that Stiles has difficulty feeling his way through, but Stiles eventually gets the basic idea. Derek isn't good with talking or sharing, and has trouble interacting peacefully with anyone outside his… Family? 

"Family" seems like the wrong interpretation, and Stiles struggles with the heft of that particular word/idea/feeling. So he pulls back from Derek's- whatever it is that Stiles has been sifting through. He comes at it with his own experience and lessons from his mom, and then it hits him even more solidly that Derek is a _werewolf_.

"Pack" is what Stiles had been missing, and now that piece of knowledge clicks together with the other things Derek is thinking and feeling. Derek is bad with anyone who isn't Pack, and even then he's still not the easiest person to get to know because it's so hard to let himself go and display what he's feeling.

But this sudden, inexplicable connection with Stiles is so attractive. Stiles would have thought it would leave someone so careful with his true emotions feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. In some circumstances, he's positive Derek would have lashed out in anger and panic as soon as he realized he was basically laid bare to another person.

So Stiles is curious why Derek hasn't pushed him away yet, then. And since Derek is still allowing him to 'look and see', Stiles searches for the answer.

He gets a wave of amusement from Derek, the strongest feeling yet. It seems like the longer they let this connection happen, the easier it gets to pick up the other's emotions and thoughts. Stiles has a vague idea that he or Derek could break it if they chose. At least they could now, while it's in its infancy. He doesn't know what it would do to him, since he's controlling his magic right now because he's dependent on his focus on Derek to keep it reigned in, but he's pretty sure it wouldn't hurt Derek.

Tentatively, he pushes that thought toward the middle-space where he and Derek are slowly entwining into _StilesandDerek_. Not the 'I might lose control again' thought, but the one about breaking the connection and how it wouldn't hurt Derek if they did.

Derek huffs and looks him in the eye, stern and amused at once. He doesn't want to break it. He likes it. And the thing Stiles didn't understand, the reason _why_ Derek is okay with it, becomes clear because Derek is showing him as best he can. It's sort of stilted at first, because neither of them is used to communicating this way for all that it feels natural. So it's a ball of history here, even more tangled than what Stiles sensed in him before. There's betrayal, hurt, guilt, and so much _anger_ it steals Stiles's breath. Derek pulls it back with a soft feeling of apology, and puts in its place a different tangle of emotion. It's wonder and curiosity that turns into bone-deep relief. And something that feels like looking over the edge of a high cliff, of taking steps closer and closer to where there's nothing but a drop-off point. 

And then Stiles feels the moment Derek breathes deep, fear warring with determination to plummet into the unknown, and then Derek takes a running jump.

Stiles has no idea what it means, and it scares him even more than it seems to be scaring Derek, because he doesn't get it. Why would Derek do this, feel this? He needs to know. 

So without thought, Stiles reaches out and grabs Derek. He does it with his arms wrapping around Derek tightly in the physical world, but in this inbetween place, this link-connection-bond place, he does something else. It's the first thing he can think of, that Derek needs something to catch him, or… no. Something to help him fly. At first he thinks he should give Derek wings, but his magic disapproves. Oh, right, because Derek is a werewolf and a werewolf with wings would just be silly.

But Stiles isn't a werewolf. He's not quite sure what he is, now that he's flooded with magic and has a seemingly metaphysical bond (soulbond? that- no, best not to think that, because that word is even scarier) with a werewolf he's only just met. But whatever he is, a werewolf he is not, so wings are not out of the question. His magic seems to agree, because in that inbetween place, that intangible reality where Derek has just launched himself into the unknown, Stiles transforms into something he can't really see but can feel nonetheless.

He swoops down into a dive, his wings in the halfway point between tucked against him and spread wide. He reaches down with his talons and snatches Derek from his freefall, and Stiles is large enough and powerful enough that the weight is nothing to him. His wings beat and they fly together, and the feelings he's getting from Derek are exultant satisfaction and gratefulness. They land back into the physical world and Stiles thinks the whole exchange probably only took one or two seconds in that inbetween place. They clutch each other, and Derek is laughing softly against Stiles's ear.

"See? You've made it impossible for me to be afraid," Derek says, a peaceful exhale, and suddenly it all clicks together. 

Stiles understands, now. Derek isn't scared of being laid bare to Stiles because he can feel all of Stiles in the same way Stiles can feel Derek. They are on equal footing, one just as vulnerable as the other.

His mother is gone, and her family will be after him soon. He'll be going to the Hale pack for sanctuary because this is what his mother planned, a way to be safe, to gain protection, but he doesn't know them at all. And soon, if all goes well, he will be meeting his father for the first time, and he doesn't know how to have a father, or what will be expected of him in that relationship.

But at the moment, it's okay, he can push it all away, because he has Derek. Someone he'd never seen or heard about a few hours ago is now the center of his world, his anchor, the thing that will keep him sane and keep his magic from blasting out of control.

**Author's Note:**

> I will probably not add to this. I appreciate kudos and comments, but please be respectful. I think this ends in a good enough place to be mostly self-contained, and you can guess what happens next. If anyone wants to write a sequel in this 'verse, please feel free.


End file.
